COURSE
THE CITY AS ARCHIVE
University of Basel, Urban Studies, MA Critical Urbanisms, Fall 2023
FANON TODAY
THIS ESSAY OFFERS AN INTERPRETATION OF THE TWO ESSAYS:
Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance by Ann Laura Stoler
Fanon and Space: Colonization, Urbanization, and Liberation from the Colonial to the Global City by Stefan Kipfer
CRITICAL ESSAY
INTERPRETATION
An archive is not merely a resource but a subject in itself. It refers to the production of knowledge rather than the knowledge itself. The classifications within an archive are directly linked to colonial policies and the imperial state. This content is intrinsically tied to space and time; in this context, Frantz Fanon's works serve as valuable resources for understanding the spatial and urban dimensions of colonial archives. Spatial relationships and analyses form the foundation of archives over specific periods, as space and time always carry metaphors critical to the historical transformation of colonialism. Spatial concerns inevitably trigger temporal ones.
Colonialism is not confined to the past but remains an active structure shaping the present. It signifies spatial organization, alienation, and control. In this sense, the archive embodies the essence of colonial policy, offering insights into spatial organization and relationships within the colonial city and addressing the socio-spatial dilemmas of racism. Fanon emphasizes this in his works, assigning primary importance to space in both its physical and psychological dimensions.
Understanding the neo-imperial world today involves recognizing spatial controls at individual and societal scales and reflecting on modern forms of colonization. This necessitates reinterpreting many urban paradigms. Colonial documents, on the one hand, serve as emotional sources that reveal fears and perceptions, while on the other, they point to the institutions and geopolitical structures these documents uphold. Such reflections are essential for comprehending contemporary urban spaces.
Fanon highlights the sharp spatial boundaries imposed by colonialism in the colonial city—a kind of division that reflects the broader impositions of colonial power. In a postcolonial reading, establishing the connection between archives and space, analyzing these relationships at the urban scale, and recognizing the destructiveness of colonial spatial architecture will inevitably lead us to uncover new contradictions.
ETHNOGRAPHY IN THE COLONIAL ARCHIVES
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ARCHIVAL ACTIVITY
The use of historical perspectives and archives is becoming increasingly significant for anthropologists engaged in postcolonial studies. At this juncture, academics need to approach the archive not merely as a resource but as a subject in itself. The archive is not only a field for accessing information but also a site for producing knowledge, a monument to state power, and an instrument of state ethnography.
The content of the archive, its form, and the systems of classification and epistemology it embodies are direct outcomes of colonial policies and state power. In this context, the archive served as one of the most powerful tools of the imperial state in the late nineteenth century. Secrecy within the archive represents a kind of coded repository of beliefs, existing at the intersection of law and power.
This article centers on the colonial order embedded in archival production, treating archiving as a process rather than merely as a collection of objects. A crucial critique at this juncture is to view archives as epistemological experiments rather than as neutral repositories. Colonial archives, as such, remain deeply contentious.
MATERIALITY AND IMAGINARY
THE COLONIAL ORDER OF THINGS
These studies converge on a shared historical question about knowledge and power: Which political forces, social structures, and moral frameworks produce certain forms of qualitative knowledge while erasing or marginalizing others? The archive can be conceived as a set of discursive rules, a utopian project, a repository of documents, or a collection of expressions. However, the most crucial understanding is that colonial archives are institutions that simultaneously conceal, reveal, and perpetuate state power. Colonial documents also function as an emotional economy, exposing what is imagined, feared, seen, or heard.
To truly understand an archive, one must grasp the institutions it serves. At this juncture, cross-references, rewritten sections, and quotations reveal not only how decisions were made but also how colonial histories were constructed.
COLONIZER AND COLONIZED
SPACE IN FANON'S WORK
This article reinterprets the spatial and urban dimensions of Frantz Fanon's work. While Fanon's writings feature strong spatial elements, there is no consensus regarding the role of space within his texts.
Postcolonial theorists have interpreted the prevalence of spatial metaphors in Fanon's work as indicative of his unease with dialectical thought and historical transformation. Additionally, some readers have identified a shift from spatial to temporal concerns in his writings. However, the author argues that the spatial aspects of Fanon's work neither contradict philosophical representation nor temporal transformation.
Fanon conceptualized racism as an alienating spatial phenomenon, regarded colonization as a form of spatial organization, and linked decolonization, in part, to the reinterpretation of spatial relations within the colonial city. According to him, this reinterpretation could only be achieved through the construction of socio-spatial alliances across the nation. Fanon's historical-geographical perspective on racism, colonialism, and national liberation reflects an understanding that bridges the colonial war, postwar French urbanization, and the colonization of everyday life.
APART
RACISM AS SPATIAL RELATIONS
The neo-imperial world persists in controlling urban space, making it essential to reflect Fanon's micro- and macro-urban perspectives and his understanding of colonization within the context of the present day. These perspectives should be analyzed on both urban and spatial scales. Fanon's approach to racism, colonial issues, and national liberation is simultaneously geographical and historical. This spatial dimension and movement often depart from the historicism of dialectical thought. From an epistemological perspective, Fanon serves as an invaluable resource for geographers and urban theorists who view spatial, cultural, and linguistic transformations in social theory as interconnected and occurring simultaneously.
Many postcolonial scholars emphasize the stark nature of Fanon's spatial narratives, particularly his distinction between colonizer and colonized. He describes colonial spatial organization as a form of compartmentalization. In his view, the colonial world is a world divided into rigid sections. The existence of native quarters versus European quarters, native-focused schools versus European-focused schools, and similar structures underscores this division. In the colonial city, spatial organization emerges as an absolute exercise of external, imposed power.
URBAN SPACE AND SOCIOSPATIAL STRATEGY
A WORLD DIVIDED INTO COMPARTMENTS
The gendering of colonial space further exposes the contradictions inherent in the spatial architecture of colonialism. Within this framework, the metropolis symbolized specific orientations, patterns of urbanization, and spatial displacements tied to the colonization process, particularly in the context of the gendered colonization of daily life. Through Fanon's lens, the revolutionary dialectic between body and world necessarily demands the transformation of urban space in all its facets. Urban space serves as the critical arena where daily life and broader social formations intersect and are articulated as a cohesive whole.
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